


Legacy

by twilisols



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: F/M, Leo thinks about the future and has a revelation about family blah blah blah, Nohr | Conquest Route, kind of a follow-up to my other leokamu piece kind of not, more of a character exploration than anything else honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 09:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8396161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilisols/pseuds/twilisols
Summary: In Brynhildr’s dark leather surface were buried the years of his life, the whole sum of his existence.





	

Ever since he could remember, he had been running from a singular feeling. Every waking moment, the obsessions that consumed him - _work work work, study, study harder and never let them see you bleed_ \- had stemmed from a single fear scratching, insistent at the back of his mind. He needed to stand tall. Prodigious, immovable. He needed to be the best he could be, every hour, every _breath_ , every minute.

Suddenly, none of it seemed to matter. Everything he had ever worked to achieve faded into a sudden stillness that permeated every cell.

“It’s heavier than I thought,” Forrest murmured, his expression strangely dreamy. The boy’s left hand reflexively caressed Brynhildr’s spine, gloved fingers running feather-light over smooth leather the color of wine and smoke.

Leo cleared his throat softly before speaking, all too conscious of how well the tome fit in his son’s hand. There was something unexpectedly jarring in this, seeing Brynhildr’s ancient pages turned by fingers other than his own.

“Yes,” he said. “The weight surprised me as well. I feel it is a reminder: ‘never forget that you are holding life and death.’ Or something like that. You’ll have to make your own meaning, I suppose.”

“It feels like…holding eternity.” Forrest’s inhale was low and measured, like the breathing of one close to sleep.

Leo swallowed hard. Truth flashed naked and abrupt before his mind’s eye, dizzying, and it was like he was falling, crashing into the realization - his time was short. It had always been short, really.

_And you will pass it to your son, and he will pass it to his son, and the people will forget. And on and on and on it goes…_

The passage of time seemed a peril that loomed directly above Leo’s head, threatening infinity, a namelessness that he could not express in words but which lay thickly on top of his chest, crushing his lungs paper-thin beneath its weight.

No one would remember him. Nobody.

It didn’t matter what he did, how many books he studied, how many soldiers under his command, how many battles he won or proposals he drafted. He would be a name fading into the back of the mind - _the sleepy schoolchild slumped at her desk as the teacher droned on, names and names and none of them mattered, there were so many names and what was one more date, one more war?_ \- and if he was lucky, one more portrait lining the castle walls - _Leo I, second prince of Nohr 1458 – 1521. Exitus Acta Probat. –_ and ever there would be the war and the dark tome attached to his name, but that did not matter. There were always more stories.

In Brynhildr’s dark leather surface were buried the years of his life, the whole sum of his existence. It was a kind of peace, the brief touch of time at his temples. It was a kind of emptiness, a hollowing in his lungs. A voice whispering in his ear: _peace and be still, child. You are as light as the dust you will become._

“Father?”

Leo blinked. He came back to the present. “Yes, Forrest? What is it?”

“You seemed lost,” his son frowned, brow puckering with worry. “Are you all right? Should I put it back?”

“Ah…no. No, hold it as long as you like. It’s almost more yours now than it is mine.”

Brynhildr had always felt oddly like a part of him. A part of his mind _and_ his body, using it was bare instinct. It barely required thought, yet Leo felt like he was reaching to the bottom of a very deep chasm and _uprooting_ a piece of his being every time he cast from its pages. It was him, it was his. Yet it fit in Forrest’s hand as if it had been bound especially for him, and Leo wondered suddenly if it had _ever_ been his…or if it had merely chosen him for a while. A tutorship? A brief love affair? Or something more permanent, an _imprinting_ of sorts? It didn’t much matter either way.

“Don’t say that, Father,” Forrest chided. “I can’t even use it yet - I don’t even know if I want to! What if Mother heard you talk that way?”

Leo laughed. “She’d probably say something about living for the present and looking after each other and not letting doubt have a place in our hearts…something philosophical yet superbly naïve.”

“She’s wiser than you give her credit for, you know.” Forrest was beginning to sound huffy; he snapped the book closed and thrust it into Leo’s hands. “Here. Take it back.”

“I say that with the greatest affection,” the prince protested halfheartedly. “You know I appreciate -“

“Appreciate what?” Long strands of pale white hair swept Leo’s face as his wife stood on tiptoe to brush a kiss to his jaw from behind. Kana, as always, trailed on her heels, grinning sunnily, a fistful of weeds in his hand and a streak of dirt on his forehead.

“Hello,” Leo replied, lightly nuzzling Corrin’s cheek with his own. A greeting, a fullness brimming, a welcome quickening of the pulse. “Where did you come from?”

“Council,” Corrin announced, sounding determined yet cheerful. “Which is where you would have been if you hadn’t been…what are you doing?”

“Just…discussing some things,” he said vaguely. A dismissive hand-wave, hoping she wouldn’t ask and Forrest wouldn’t tell.

“Nothing that matters enough to keep you from our war council, I hope,” said Corrin. “Xander and I can’t devise a winning strategy all on our own while still managing to keep losses minimal. You know you’re invaluable, right?”

And there it was. The present sweeping up to overtake him, in all its momentary melancholy.

They needed him _now._ If he’d realized sooner…in the light of this need, ignominy seemed a small price to pay. And, after all, wasn’t fame merely the momentary delaying thereof? A small sorrow, a little grieving for a legacy neither lost nor won, but discarded before it could be either. This was her reality, and it had always put his to shame.

Infinity had always been here. It was the exasperated affection in Forrest’s gaze, Kana’s broad grin as he clung immovably to Leo’s ankles, Corrin’s head resting against his shoulder, her arm about his waist. It was the look in her eyes, as she lifted her head and gazed at him with such simple love, a soft little smile dancing about her soft lips.

He would love them an age in the time they were afforded. He would love them with passion and with patience, with the immutable strength of the earth beneath their feet and all the ephemeral fire of mortal things.

 “Come on, you,” said Corrin. Always her look seemed as if she knew, somehow, what he had been thinking, and somehow loved him for it. “There’s supper upstairs. Jakob’s made stew and I need you to help me out of this armor.”

“Absolutely,” said Leo gratefully, and that was all. Nothing else was needed.

He helped her lift Kana into her arms and he himself took Forrest’s hand, squeezing it once, hard. The two of them walked swift and sure as they followed Corrin across the courtyard and upwards, into the house.

**Author's Note:**

> so I wrote this ages ago as a reaction to that picture of Forrest holding Brynhildr from the Heirs of Fate DLC, but only just recently discovered it in my drafts. I was originally planning to follow it up with more drabbles from each ending - one of Leo coming to the realization in Revelations that he's unpopular with Corrin's subjects and engaging in some self-reflection, one of the Birthright ending with him dealing with the crushing loneliness and guilt, and one from the actual Heirs of Fate timeline, all supporting Leo's realization that this reality (the Conquest timeline) is the only one he needs. it's a little odd reading this, in hindsight, considering it's not meant to stand on its own, features a pairing I don't even ship anymore and characters I don't think about very much these days - but honestly? it's one of my favorite short pieces I've ever written. idk what I was on at the time but it was like six in the morning and apparently writing magic happens then. anyhow I hope some people can enjoy this even though it's kind of an artifact lol.


End file.
